I am not a dog trainer - nor do I play one on t.v. - but I do have 30 years experience with dogs, my mother was a dog trainer and I have a ton of friends who are dog trainers or have trained and titled dogs in several working venues.

Any time I offer advice, it is from personal experience or from having seen people work through the same or similar issues. That and most of the advice I offer is really simple common sense.

I will admit, however, that there are a couple of things that I firmly believe are true. You can't let a dog run loose at the park and expect it to come if you haven't first established a reliable leashed come first and every dog needs to be crated trained to the extent that they are comfortable in a crate.